scottrallye

Possible or not, CZ listed the Czechmate as 9mm or .38 in their catalog up until this year.

Yeah, I love my Czechmate and have had a lot of success with it, but even though it says they are available in .38 super I have yet to see one anywhere. I feel like at some point I'm limiting the guns performance somewhat shooting 9 major... but that just might be all the .38 super guys wanting to feel better about all the money they spend on brass so they tell everyone it's wayyyy better. I had a really good talk with JJ in his shop about his Tanfo and comparing and contrasting calibers, guns, etc. He's a big believer that the .38 is the way to go, and I AM inclined to believe him

I noticed that, and my first thought was to cut the dust cover about 2". I'd love to do it to my Czechmate, but those dumbasses put the serial number at the furthest end of the dust cover so I can't do much. (And I'm not about to deal with the ATF to have it moved) PS: Those pics of your Tanfo open gun are probably the #1 photo I see on this site, bar none. Seems like every thread I open they pop up! Good looking gun though, I'd show it off too Thinking about a Gold Custom in .38 super now that MBX is making mags for them. Kneeling Atlas, you have any input on a Gold Custom in 38?

Anyone know anything about the new Tanfoglio Domina open gun? I'm kind of interested, although it looks more or less exactly like the Czechmate I'm currently shooting, albeit shorter and available in .38 super. Oh, and that boner-riffic slide racker. Searching for "Domina" on Google is not providing the results I'm looking for (although it's endlessly entertaining). EAA has proved totally unable to answer emails, as I've sent a couple of them asking for any info about whether or not this gun will become available stateside. No reply yet. Based on their advertising, I assume they are too busy supervising the 8 year old they have photoshopping their HORRIBLE ads. Anyways, if anyone has any info on this gun I'd love to hear it.

I shoot a CZ Czechmate. I'm about 24,000 rounds down the pipe (on one barrel) and just shot it to a 4th place finish in Open at Area 1 2017. The only issue is tuning the big stick to work right, otherwise I simply do not have issues. Period. I've literally gone thousands and thousands of rounds without a single light strike, mis-feed, etc. I heard about the barrel lug issue but have not had any issues whatsoever. I use grease on the slide stop and oil everywhere else. I have replaced 2 slide stops as routine maintenance. It comes with a 2nd barrel anyway, so if you DID have an issue, you'd have another one to use while you replaced the first. I am tempted to buy some kind of 2011 just to try something different, but when I'm have such good results with my Czechmate I don't see any reason to change. Plenty of stories about teething issues with 2011's, although once set up well they seem to be fine. It does seem like there is a wide range of quality between manufacturers though. My CZ shoots great, runs great. Awesome value. I have not regretted my purchase once in the last 17 months I've been shooting it. Scott

*Some* Were collapsing somewhat in the bottom compartment, making zippers on the lower compartment hard to open. Even still, those that had the issue had it resolved by CED with a new bag. RePete evidently didn't read the whole thread. It's the best range bag out there in my opinion, and I have literally tried all the major offerings out there. My Shooters Connection backpack was totally unsupported and tending to collapse in on itself (not the mild compression of the DAA bag) and the quality of construction is FAR better in the DAA backpack. The lower pocket in the SC backpack isn't truly hard-sided, so the weight of the rest of your gear crushes whatever you have in the lower pocket. Spend the money and buy once, cry once. The DAA Rangepack is where it's at for sure.

You can absolutely run the mags at 29+1 and 24+1 with a little ingenuity. I took some very thin aluminum, cut into a strip about 1/2" wide by 3/4" long and epoxied them to the inside of the mags near the feed lips (I shaped the aluminum to conform to the mag shape). I run 29+1 in my big stick and 23/24+1 in my 140mm mags without issue. I just shot Nationals with my CM and literally never had a malfunction, and haven't for months. It's unbelievable that CZ shoots themselves in the foot with this and tells people to "run their ammo shorter" which is not only a Band-Aid (and doesn't fix the issue) but it also isn't reasonable when loading 9mm major. The quality of the gun itself is fantastic however, it's too bad the mags require the extra work though. And leon1333, you evidently have no idea what you're talking about. "Buy Texas! Derp derp derp!" Yeah, because I didn't see an ASSLOAD of STI's and Infinities have issue after issue at almost every match I went to this year. I shot my way through Nats watching nearly everyone I saw on my squad shooting a 2011 have an issue at some point. Myself and my shooting partner (who also runs a CM) shot the entire match without issue... and this is representative of most matches I go to. It's been 6 months since I've had a malfunction since tuning my CZ mags. Make a case for a different gun if you want, but "Buy 'merica, Texas! Blah blah" is not even an argument.

My suggestion: don't. Run an upright. There is a reason everyone winning at the top end of this sport isn't running a sideways mount (well, 99% of those winning). Height over bore isn't a big deal at all, the only reason in my mind to run a 90 is ejection issues that absolutely can't be resolved but you refuse to run a gun that doesn't have the issue. It strikes me that the 90 deg mount trend is a result of heavy over-thinking. I went from limited (and having never shot an open gun) to Open Master in 4 months with an upright mount. It takes about 2 weeks of regular dry fire to get used to the difference in sight alignment between a dot and irons. Don't overthink it... people have been running (and winning with) upright C-mores forever.

I'll start by pointing out that I am NOT a fan of the 90-deg style mount. That said, I understand why some people like them... namely, height over bore and ejection issue correction. Most micro-dot sights sit forward of ejection port, eliminating stovepipes by a case hitting the sight mount, and the height over bore is nearly halved over a traditional c-more. If vertical window space mattered that much, C-more would have designed it that way. You literally want to track your dot off the glass and back on in the 0.05-0.1 seconds it takes for the dot to return to center glass? Even with a Slide Ride the dot usually rises near the top edge and back down... but I'm not actively trying to watch it, I'm timing my next shot when it returns to center (or wherever I want my next shot) and staying target-focused. Therefore, I see absolutely no purpose whatsoever to run a micro-dot sideways. In fact, I thought that the micro-dot was a solution to all the people running 90 deg mounts. Maybe I'm crazy though.

Training Session: 7-23-16 Spokane Valley Rifle Pistol Club Sunny and warm 196 rounds fired 1.5 hours Note: First session out with new brass grips that alter weight of gun to be more palm-heavy Started off with some draw-to-first shot work. Went well. Can now start a session cold and get alpha hits on a one-second draw with no warm up. As I warmed up it improved, with most being in the low .90's. Worked on shot to shot reloads. This isn't necessarily a match-applicable skill (except for classifiers maybe) but my reloads have needed some work and this seems to be good practice. Started off hitting okay reloads, also blew a few. After warmup they improved. Then, I noticed as the mag got lighter, they improved markedly. With a half full mag, I started hitting them in a second flat, then into the .90's, the best being a .93. Stoked about that! Never thought about using anything but a full mag during a classifier, but I think for classifiers requiring reloads I will only load what's necessary (with a slight cushion if Comstock). Worked on transitions across three targets. Seemed okay, had them spaced about 8 yards apart and averaged .17 splits and .20-.30 transitions. Practiced the classifier "Can you Count" with steel targets at greater distance. This required 5 shots, a reload, and 5 shots on another target. Splits were good, had a few .13's which were a personal best. Recoil control was good, new grip balance is a little different though. Not bad, just different. Best strings were 3.5 and 3.49. Practiced shooting under a wall at 4 KO targets at 10 yards. Experimented with different position entry and positions, when going fully prone wasn't necessary. The best seemed to be running into the position and tucking my left foot behind me, sliding in on that knee, while my right foot slides out in a straight line until fully extended. I end up in what's basically a hurdler's stretch, but with my left foot under my butt. Threw some shots over the top of the KO's, which is VERY odd. I normally miss either a little low, or a little low and left. I am guessing that the change in gun balance is resulting in a change in how the dot re-centers, because it was make up shots that went high. Like I'm used to having to bring the dot back up onto target, but with the heavier end of the gun, it's exaggerated and the dot is continuing to travel up on the glass. I've have to work through it.

"Wednesday Night Steel" Match: 7-20-16 •Spokane Valley Rifle Pistol Club •Sunny and hot •115 rounds fired •4 hours total Shot the 3 stage steel match at Mica. Ran the first two USPSA style stages before the steel-challenge stage. Shot them okay, but was not patient with my dot, and did not immediately recognize that the entire match was at greater distance with smaller targets than usual, so I should have slowed down my actual shooting speed slightly on the shots themselves. Had 4 total make up shots on steel on the first two stages, which felt much worse at the time but in retrospect, wasn't too bad. Should have been more patient though. My reloads were much improved. I hit smooth, relatively fast reloads (for me) on the move, and kept the gun up in front of my face (finally!) and executed much better reloads as a result. The steel challenge stage ate my shorts big time. Again, didn't realize it was a MUCH tougher course than usual, with small rounds at distance. Had make up shots on almost every run, and didn't finish on the stop plate on one run. My first steel match penalty ever. I've been working hard on my surrender draws, and while improved, I was so sore from the gym I didn't hit them as well tonight. I think I still won the match, but I had some good stuff and some things to work on.

Training Session: 7-15-16 Spokane Valley Rifle Pistol Club Sunny and breezy Trained with Grant Brashears 190 rounds fired 4 hours total Skills Trained: Unloaded Table Starts Transitions, wide to low and inside (and picking up dot when doing this) Swingers, trapping, headshots, tracking/hitting passing swinger through ports 30 yard bill drills Unloaded table starts: Were decent (I thought) with a dry fire par time of around 1.8. Could barely achieve this in live fire (to first shot). Turned out that because my slide racker is on the right side (if you shoot a Czechmate you'll know why) the extra time I had to take to roll the gun over, and then bring it back on target, was really slowing me up. Reinstalled my sidewinder on the left side, and saw immediate improvement. Regularly achieved 1.7 seconds to first hit from unloaded table start. Best was 1.64 seconds to an alpha hit. Pleased with that, keeping that slide racker on my gun. Low, inside transitions: I have lost time at several big matches recently leaning around barricades to hit low, inside targets. I'm totally comfortable point-shooting these obviously, but these were high-consequence no-shoot covered targets, so I wasted precious time looking for my dot to ensure my hits. We worked on this leaning around walls on both sides. We shot an open target about 10 yards out, wide of the wall, and then transitioned hard into the low target. Wasn't hard at all to point shoot these quickly, with or without the dot. So we started doing headshots only. Turned out these too were easy to point shoot without the dot, even though I was TRYING to shoot it with dot on the glass. Improved at lining the gun up quicker to find the dot if I need it, but the real lesson seemed to be that I don't really need the dot at that range, even on very tight shots. Swingers: I've never had a chance to really practice these. At my current level, trapping it on the end of the swing for 2 alpha is relatively easy. Did a little bit of practice on that, then moved on to head shots. Took some work. The second shot always seemed to pull into the C zone just beneath the B zone. Which is weird, because when swinging, a low hit should be off the target, so really it's like the pulled left. Odd. Anyways, the trick seems to be just calling solid shots, and tracking it slightly because of the longer split. Hitting it twice as it passed through the port was really tough. We discovered you needed a sub .20 split to have any hope of a double hit on one pass, and they will likely end up wide. Going one and one is relatively easy, but we discovered you are saving almost a second by getting two hits on one pass, which is probably worth dropping a point or two. My best was a .16 split for an Alpha Charlie. Would depend on the circumstances at a match for me to determine if I'd try it in competition rather than play it safe (which is my normal MO). 30 Yard Bill Drill: Fairly easy. Had one or two mikes, only when trying to go stupid fast. At a .30 - .40 split pace, I got all my hits in A-C zone. This exercise was more about videoing our guns in recoil in our constant search for the flattest shooting load for our guns. Video posted here: http://www.instagram.com/scooter.mcgrooter/

Scooters Tale: Who needs talent if you work hard? Scott Meredith A-87873 Open - Master Limited - A Class Shooting since October 2014 Instagram: @scooter.mcgrooter I have been keeping a shooting log since I got serious about the sport (after purchasing my CZ 75 Tactical Sports) on April 10th, 2015. That log contains where I shot, round count, etc. I'm starting this journal with images of that log attached. I shot Limited through 2015, bought an Open gun on impulse in December (not really, I had been dying to shoot Open since I got involved in USPSA), and began competing in Open in 2015. I have been doing a lot of reading recently to improve my mental game (if you haven't worked on this aspect of the game you are selling yourself short, it has done more for my shooting that 10k rounds in practice would have) and the book "With Winning in Mind" by Lanny Basham had a particularly strong impact on me. In his book, he talks about the importance of keeping a performance journal, and outlines what it should contain. Other shooters that have written books (Saul Kirsch for instance) discuss the same thing. This thread will be my new performance journal. My old log is now becoming my gun-journal. I'll continue to track round count, etc. but the emphasis will be on tracking my gun maintenance and parts/problems, and not refer to my actual shooting performance. Here is my current training "schedule" (routine might be a better word): 1 Hour of dry-fire a day. Usually from 5am-6am. I've been doing this since April 15th 2015. I've missed approximately 15 days over the last 1.5 years due to vacations, etc. Use Ben Stoegers dry fire book heavily. I'll get a pic of my "dojo" posted. Local indoor range, Sharp Shooting, has a fun match every Thursday and Friday. It's a single USPSA-like stage you can run repeatedly. Your first run is your "match" run. Usually do this every week, running the stage 3 times on average. From May-September, I shoot a Steel Fun match on the first and third Wednesday of the month. Usually about 100 rounds. I had been shooting a level one match every weekend, but I'm rolling that back to two a month, to be replaced with more live-fire training drills. Less travel, less burnout, more anticipation for matches and better progression from increased drills. That's the goal anyways. Shot Area 1 this year, the Inland Empire Sectional, will be shooting the Washington State Championships (level 2) and I'm competing at USPSA Open Nationals this year! Stoked about that. Getting a slot was my first goal, now I'm trying to decide on what my goal for Nationals should be. I mean, aside from trying to win obviously. Hopefully keeping this journal this helps someone else out, not just myself!

Yes, the TS and CM mags are interchangeable. I took the CZC 140mm extension base pads off my .40 TS to use on my Czechmate and they fit and functioned the exact same way.

If you email AA Academy, Saul Kirsch will email you directly with instructions on how to modify the racer/race master to work with the Czechmate. He did that when I emailed asking about how to modify a racer to fit my Tactical Sports.

Use the CR Speed WSM Universal. Took minimal adjustments to fit it, tons of adjustment, works awesome.

Theoretically, being hand built implies higher quality control. Brazos custom (for example) does quite a business simply taking stock STI's and "tuning" them (i.e. making them work correctly) which is what I'm sure STI does when they have someone send a gun back. When my friend with the Edge sent it back, STI told him to send all his mags back too... so they could tune everything and make sure it runs. It seems like they send guns out hoping they'll work well, (and I'm sure many do) but when they don't, they have you send it back and then get the gun tuned right. Some of the hassles had to do with not doing their homework on reloading for a 2011, (like reloading their ammo to 1.180 OAL or longer) but still had to send them back even after correcting the load issues. Additionally, despite the advice from some of us that run steel "race-guns", one of the guys never seemed to clean or lube the gun enough. His gun has been more reliable since figuring it out. So yes, there was some learning curve involved on the shooters part. There is some kind of shared responsibility there, absolutely. Like I said, I'm sharing what I've witnessed first hand. Reading through the forums here, they don't appear to be alone though. Obviously the 2011 is an awesome platform or the vast majority of pro's (and pretty much everyone else) wouldn't be running them. I'm just arguing that if you are going to spend the kind of money this guy is looking at spending for an open gun, you seem to be more likely to end up with a reliable gun when you make your purchase if it's coming through a shop that took the time to do thorough quality control and hand-built it. That's it. I'm sure that doesn't eliminate every issue possible every time, but you sure don't hear about many SVI's, CK's, FGW's, Brazos Customs, etc. having reliability problems. You are absolutely right though, you are liable to have QC issues with any firearm. It's easy for me to say that "at that price it should run perfectly" but they are much less expensive than all the custom 2011's out there, and if they did all the custom work, they'd be custom prices too.

I will likely be murdered for saying this by STI guys but... Several guys I know have bought brand new STI's. An Edge, a couple DVC Limited's, and a DVC Open. ALL of them had multiple issues right out of the gate. The Edge was the worst, when my buddy called STI a week or two after purchase he was told "We need to do some more work on the barrel, you need to send it back". 4 MONTHS LATER he got his "new" gun back. He still had to tinker with the ejector when he got it back. Seems to run well now. The others had various mag, ejection, or failure to go into battery issues. Once sorted, they seem to run well, but there seem to be a lot of teething issues with factory STI's. (Of course they all require "mag tuning", I think that goes without saying) To me (and this is just my opinion) if you spend that kind of money on a gun, it better frickin' run and run and run and run. Sending a gun back for 4 months within a week or two of buying it?! Get outta here. Not for me. I'm a CZ guy and run a Czechmate in Open (which has fulfilled my #1 requirement that it needs to work), but I fully intend on running a 2011 Open gun down the road. Based on what I've seen these friends deal with and what I've read here, I will be buying a custom 2011 without a doubt. The couple hundred extra for the CK is almost certainly worth skipping all the fuss of trying to make your new Open gun work, haven't heard or read anything about those being anything other than awesome right out of the gate (although I'm sure mag tuning applies there too).

I've been shooting open since January with my CZ Czechmate in 9mm Major. I have put about 8,000 rounds through it in that time. I did a TON of research on reloading even before I bought my Czechmate, and spent a LOT of time developing a good load for it. Part of that research included the issue of reusing brass. I heard everything from "Don't worry about it, I reuse it over and over unless I notice a crack" to "I ONLY use brand new brass, and never pick up range brass". So, that pretty much told me nothing. So I went ahead and started using range brass I had collected from my local range prior to switching to open. No one around here really shoots open, so I wasn't worried about picking up any brass used for 9 major. All the used 9mm brass (in reasonable condition) I used for the first couple thousand rounds I didn't have any issues with. I kept on collecting range brass, including my own after I started shooting open... I figured that unless something felt wonky in the press (I am a very careful and deliberate reloader, especially with 9mm major) I'd run with it. I began to notice some bulged cases when I got into my own 9 major brass, and just threw those ones out as I reloaded to minimize wasted primers and rounds that wouldn't fit my case gauge. As I loaded ammo for Area 1 this year, I carefully inspected each case before loading, drop-tested all of it, checked primers, and re-examined it all for any cracks, etc. I didn't notice any primers that seated too-easily. I thought that being so deliberate so would negate the need for me to use brand new brass as added security for the match. So I shot Area 1 last month and shot a great match for me. 10 of my 16 stages were top 20 (of 380 shooters) and 5 of those were top 10. Had a few stages that were so-so but still top 50 and very good for me... at that pace I was well on track for a 15-20th place finish at my first Area match. Unfortunately, I had to eat a zero on my 2nd stage because one of my cases must have had a stretched primer pocket, blew the primer out, and the case stuck in the chamber. I tried desperately to clear it but there was no way without a squib rod, etc. and I wasn't going to risk a DQ so I stopped myself and told the RO I was finished. He escorted me to a safety table and I removed the case and carried on. That was on stage two. I let it go, still shot a great match for me, but it pushed me out of a top twenty finish back to 46th, because of one bad case. When I got home, I ordered up 3k cases of once-fired brass from elitereloading.com for $87. You could probably find somewhere cheaper too. I'm now using that for all my practice and level-1 (local) matches. I'm still inspecting for any obvious defects as I reload (which is pretty easy actually and really doesn't slow you down much) but I still have never had an issue with any once-fired brass that wasn't loaded as 9mm major. For any level 2-match and up, I'll be using new brass no matter how well this once-fired stuff turns out. I spend too much time and energy working at this sport to let some tiny detail cost me so dearly. I knew shooting open would require a little more attention to detail and probably a few more bucks on reloading supplies, and the lesson I learned is that it simply isn't worth it to save a few bucks reusing my 9mm major brass, no matter how careful you think you are. Sorry for the novel, but I felt I needed to share my own experience with this as a new open shooter.

I have this same problem and cannot get the Big Sticks to run. I'd love to see some pictures of the modification you have done. Even the 140mm mags with CZ internals are only reliable holding 20 rounds. I think after 20, that the spring catches on the sides under the control ribs. I'll try to get some more details up soonSent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

Very true, but I was reluctant to apply the kind of pressure (and possibly heating the tube up) it would take to increase that indentation (as these are $150). That's all that would be required, but it wasn't worth potentially distorting the other dimensions of the magazine. I initially had squeezed the feed lips tighter when I first got the mag (the top bullet looked like a dog's nose sniffing for a treat when fully loaded) but the distance that needs to be covered to get the top bullets in line as they approach the feed lips via the side indents would require a pretty substantial alteration. Our solution may not have been the obvious one, but it works very well and I didn't have to send it off and pay for someone else to tinker with it. Insisting on fixing things myself is a personal problem though, more power to you if you want to send it to someone competent to fix for you

140 MM - 23 Rounds w/out CZC Follower (24 w/CZC Follower) Note:This is after mage springs are relatively packed out. 170 MM - 26 Rounds with stock follower and basepad. Won't run reliably over 24 rounds, period. 170 MM - 29 rounds with CZC basepad, spring and follower, in addition to the mag fix described below. And it RUNS. Note: At an OAL over 1.125 the Big Stick won't reliably cycle anything over 24 rounds. Factory is supposed to hold 26. However, the top of the mag tube does not have enough indentation to correctly stack and support the cases vertically for reliable feeding. So above 24 rounds, the rounds nose dive into feed ramp and jam. As any Czechmate owner can tell you, you are already at a disadvantage with the limit on 9mm OAL to about 1.170 (absolute max). Loading 9mm major requires a fair amount of leeway in seating depth to avoid overpressure. I have a great load worked up that works well at both 1.150-1.160 OAL's. Running a stupid short OAL (for 9 major anyway) was NOT a solution for reliable big stick feeding. Myself and another Czechmate owner (a good friend and GM, Grant Brashears) discovered the stacking issue pretty quickly, even though CZ told us to just run a shorter bullet. At this point, after some experimenting, we ended up using some thin aluminum strips, slightly bent to match the angle of the mag indentation and using epoxy to adhere them on the inside of the big stick. This narrows the top inch of the mag slightly, allowing the bullets to stack and support each other correctly. Full credit to Grant Brashears for all the trial and error to figure this out! After doing that, you can successfully load 29 rounds of 9mm Major at 1.160 OAL (plus 1) in the Czechmate big stick, and it will run just as well as the 140mm mags. I'll find some time to do a full post on this mag fix, as the short OAL solution CZ recommends is just dumb. It's not worth their time to fix this, when they create a VERY small number of those big sticks every year (compared to every other pistol they sell).

I came into this thread to chew you out for "usually wearing eye pro" but evidently this was a cautionary tale. Thanks for sharing, hope you healed up okay. Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk

Holy crap, you are giving up after 120 rounds?! Someone is going to get a great deal. Any time you switch platforms EVERYTHING IS off. It often takes a couple thousand rounds to get to where you were with your previous setup... but by then, you are seeing improvements in all the other aspects of your shooting. You are absolutely nuts to think you'd be magically better (or whatever you expected) at 120 rounds through the gun. Sell it to someone who will actually stick with it, they will reap the rewards for sticking with the change. I went to a Tac Sport from a G35 and took about 500 rounds to get to where I was (and a lot of dry fire) and then moved up a class less than a month later. Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk

Sounds like every other STI issue I've heard of. "All you have to do is mill out 4 or 5 thou blah blahblah" or "oh yeah, you're just going to need to drill and tap a hole in your brand new gun" or "oh, your Edge is a .40? You need to send it back to us for 3 or 4 months to do some cnc work on your chamber" (true story). I do all my own smithing, but I sure wouldn't expect to NEED to do any drilling and tapping on a new gun. Wow. Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk